Sunday 11 September

This bridge over the Douro is said to have the world's longest span

At breakfast today, there was a new French couple and the others had gone. We ate the usual fresh foods. The weather looks dull at the moment. We hope to take a Six Bridges cruise on the famous Douro river. And maybe a visit to the Casa da Musica.

Later.
Just got back to our room after a tedious bus journey. This morning we walked down to the quay and bought tickets for the 11.00 Six Bridges cruise. We sat by the window and saw four bridges while going upstream and two as we were going down towards the sea. I took lots of photos of the different structures made of iron and concrete. The Ponte de Dom Luis I was designed by a pupil of Gustav Eiffel in 1886. The Ribeira bridge is no longer used and is now a heritage site.

After the pleasant boat trip, we stopped for coffee in a riverside cafe on the Cais de Ribeira, before crossing our bridge to the south side. We looked for a lunch place and were enticed into Theophilus, where we shared octopus and each had fish - I had sea bass and Richard had cod. The fish was a bit dry and the veg had been reheated. The Alborinho white wine was very nice though.

In Graham's port cellars they use large and smaller vats

Then we set off for Graham's Port Lodge, up quite a steep hill. The winery was advertised in the Guardian newspaper, and we saw quite a few Guardian types there. There we joined the 14.30 cellar tour with guide Laura. Again we saw large and small vats and learnt the history of the company and the different styles and methods of production. We saw some vintage years of port on sale at a price. We had three ruby ports to taste with different characters, and chose one, a Late Bottled Vintage, to buy.


Then we managed to get a bus down the hill to Trinidade, but the journey took an hour and a half due to volume of traffic going over the single town centre river bridge. We got off at Trinidade and walked home for a late rest. I wrote the rest of my post cards.

Three types of ruby port - the first was a Late Bottled Vintage

In the evening we went out at about 8pm to post my cards, and tried to get some cash out, but all the cash machines had run out of euros. We walked right down to the end of Rua Mouzinho Silveira looking for a restaurant but everywhere seemed to be full. We eventually had a meal at a Japanese place, Kan Pai. I had tempura and tuna, and Richard ate ceviche and turbot. We enjoyed a bottle of Douro white wine. Then back up the hill to our B & B.